


A World Between Worlds

by chagrins



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Reylo - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21926131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chagrins/pseuds/chagrins
Summary: Set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, Rey must learn to survive in a world without Ben Solo.Existing without him presents complications, however, especially as time goes by. A year passes, and Rey's body begins to fail her. She can feel her soul being pulled away. During one of her episodes, she envisions a faraway place that forgoes all aspects of time and space and feels Ben, or Ben's spirit, reaching out to her. All the while, a Black Pantherian--a creature she's never seen before--watches her in the distance and follows her around the planet.The mystery thickens when an older man saying his name is Ezra Bridger shows up at her doorstep. He tells her there may be a chance for her to see Ben Solo again, but she needs to journey with him to his home planet, Lothal, to restore balance to the force.Rey jumps at the chance to complete her journey and find Ben once more.But at what cost will their reunion be? And why does the Black Pantherian insist on following Ezra and Rey as they complete their journey?
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars… but after watching The Rise of Skywalker, I *had* to write this alternate ending.  
> This fic is meant for all of us who ship Reylo… or anyone who might be interested in a story that focuses on The World Between Worlds and Mortis (seen in Clone Wars and Rebels, for all those who haven’t watched those shows). Based off the storyline with Ezra in Rebels, it seems quite possible that anything is actually possible when it comes to changing the past (like Leia herself said, nothing is impossible).
> 
> So, let’s rewrite history. Or, rather, extend the movie with this alternate ending.
> 
> Without further ado, I give you…

**THE KISS ON Exegol (Ben's POV)**

“Ben.”

Rey breathed life into my name—my real name—and a joy I’d never known entered my heart. She was beaming; the brightest ray of light contrasting against the decrepit throne room of the Sith ruins.

Rey’s loving look traveled straight to my heart.

I tried to say something, to tell her all the things I’d kept pent up for so long. But a force cut into my chest, and I sensed what was left of my energy draining away. I didn’t have long. Palpatine had taken most of my life force, and I’d given Rey the rest to save her life.

It was the least I could do after the damage I’d caused.

Her life for mine. That was the way it needed to be to keep balance in the force.

Before I could tell her, before I could explain anything, she drew toward me. We leaned into one another, and she placed her lips over mine.

A swirl of energy encircled us, every cell in my body pulsing. Passion that had been built up for so long released into the atmosphere. Being this close to the woman I’d loved even before I recognized my own feelings… everything stopped. My entire soul lit up, and I begged for this moment to last.

We shared something beautiful; something tragic.

When she pulled away, I allowed myself to sink into this feeling of peace, knowing full well it would be my last.

She smiled. I smiled, too, a grin stretched across my entire face. I finally knew the greatest joy. Finally understood all the things I’d been missing in the darkness, in an existence void of light.  
The world began closing in around me, fading to black. My head grew heavy and eyes shut. I rolled back to the ground, losing my grip on life.

As my soul separated from my body, I looked down, catching an aerial view of Rey’s tender embrace over my lifeless body.

I reached down toward her; tried to hold on. But she obviously no longer saw me.

An entire life with her and what could have been flashed through my mind, including training a new generation of Jedi’s, bringing balance to the force together and living out the rest of our lives side by side.

But my time as Kylo Ren had sealed my fate.

I deserved this.

I deserved all of this.

Still, I wondered what would be now that our souls were no longer in the same place. What would this mean for the Force dyad?  
What would this mean for Rey? We shared a force bond so strong, we’d become one. How could either go on without the other?

“It’s time to go home,” I heard my mother’s kind voice calling from somewhere indiscernible.

My mother.

How could I face my mother?

“I am home,” I murmured, eyes laser-focused on the tears trailing down Rey’s face.

“We’ve got work to do,” Mother said, “your path isn’t complete.”

Before I could protest, a white light engulfed me.

I floated into what I assumed would be oblivion.

**REY SKYWALKER (Rey's POV)**

The cloaked, elderly woman stared at me through narrowed eyes. Pieces of her white hair escaped the cloth around her head, wisps dancing in the whirling desert wind.

“Who are you?” the woman asked.

“I’m Rey,” I said softly.

“Rey who?”

I narrowed my brows. Both slightly irritated at the question and uncertain how to respond. I’d spent my entire life trying to figure out who I was, and now I finally had the answer. A Palpatine by blood. But there was something far greater pumping through my veins.

As Master Luke had taught me, some things are stronger than blood.

Just then, I felt an energy pulling my attention to the right. In the far distance, two faint images drew nearer. At first, I saw no more than two dazzling lights floating closer, but I already sensed who they were.

I half-smiled. A reaction full of bittersweet emotions. The galaxy had come to a place of relative peace, but at what cost?

Master Luke and Leia gazed upon me with the love of two parents. A parental force bond connecting me to them forever. I knew in my heart everything the Skywalker name meant. Not just in my connection to Luke and Leia, but also in connection to what the name represented.

There was something else, too. A piece of my heart that would always remain unsettled. I’d given Ben my hand, and he’d given me his. We’d bonded as one through the Force dyad, spiritually connected until the end of time. Now that he’d passed on, I sensed I’d forever feel as though I were a drifting soul, separated from my missing piece.

I would forever feel a connection to the name Skywalker because of Ben, too.

I waited for a moment, hoping to see him in the distance alongside Luke and Leia. Hoping that somehow our connection could bring him back. That I’d get to see him every so often. Feel his essence.

He did not appear. After a split moment, I understood I needed to accept the things that may not ever be and focus on the positive.

I returned my focus to the elderly woman and held my head high, proud of who I had become. Who I always had been.

“Rey Skywalker,” I finally answered the woman.

After she’d gone, I stared out at the setting sky, BB-8 by my side.

I knew I could always call on all the Jedi’s of the past, maybe someday Ben as well, but there was something so isolating and uncertain about my future. A pull that told me I had so much left to do to restore the balance of the force. To restore my own balance.

Something told me my greatest journey had not yet begun.


	2. THE BLACK PANTHIAN ON TATOOINE (Rey's POV)

**ONE YEAR LATER**

I crossed my lightsaber over my chest, shielding against an attack from my Marksman-H seeker droid. I hit the spark with my saber once, twice, three times. Blocked a fourth. Pivoted and…

The falling suns cast a fading ray of light over an animal’s dark fur in the far distance, throwing me off guard in the middle of practice.

Time seemed to freeze.

The creature’s focus glued to me. It was perched on the hill in the sand and had shimmering black fur. Golden eyes glimmered in my direction, slit as if in deep study.

I froze, yet time unwound. The seeker shot at me and grazed my left upper arm. Hissing back, I recoiled from the sharp pain and shot an electric spark from my hand to momentarily decommission the droid. It dropped to the sandy floor. I heard BB-8 racing over, its robotic cries reaching out to see if I needed help.

“I’m fine, BB,” I murmured distractedly.

I turned back to the desert.

The animal’s gaze had never moved. Our eyes met once more.

“Come on,” I said to BB, picking up the seeker. “Let’s get inside.”

*****

“I’m fine, _really_ ,” I said to BB-8 from my seat at the table in the kitchen.

BB danced in a panic, whining at me to tend to my wound. Glancing at the spot where the seeker had hit me, I noticed a slash with puss; a deeper red encircled the area making the mark appear infected. Though I’d certainly been hit by the seeker in the past, it’d never left a gash quite like this. I placed two fingers over the wound and concentrated on healing myself.

Softening my gaze, my eyes shut slowly. The world vibrated around me, and I gave into the Force, drew on my own life energy to pull forward the healing power necessary. Now that I was alone, I’d had to teach myself how to self-heal.

I fell away; drifted into a meditative trance. Felt all the Jedi’s before me. Sensed their presence in the fabric of the universe. Lost myself to the greater whole. Blended into the energy of all the others who had come before me.

I felt him before I heard him.

_“Rey.”_

Ben’s voice came through as a whisper. To someone else, it may have sounded like nothing more than a soft hiss in the wind.

“Ben?” I cried out, pulling out of my trance and losing some of my focus.

“Rey.” His voice again. Then, a flash. His face. His arms. I saw him in an unknown place, walking along a path. A flattened stairwell that led to nowhere. With mirrors lining the black walls.

“I’m here.” Ben’s words drifted into my mind like nothing more than a distant memory, pleading with me. Begging me to find him. To help him.

“Where are you?” I cried once more. “Tell me. I’ll… I’ll come find you.”

My eyes remained clamped shut. I entered into his space, into this world of nothing. Ben opened his mouth to say something, but no words left his mouth. He smiled at me sadly, reaching his hands out to touch me.

As our hands made contact, a jolt of energy shot through my entire body.

Our connection severed. The universe pulled me away, and Ben’s image crumbled, flaking off into a million pieces.

Our souls were broken apart once more.

“Ben!” I choked out, screeching for him. _“Ben!”_

BB’s cries brought me out of my trance.

I let out an audible exhale, snapping back to my reality. When I opened my eyes, the gash on my upper arm had disappeared, replaced with healed flesh.

None of this made sense, yet all of this made sense at the same time. I’d seen Ben die; seen his spirit pass. Yet I’d seen him clear as day just now, and I’d felt him here with me. In a way so different from how any other Force Ghost had ever visited me.

“Be with me,” I breathed. “Be with me, Ben.”

I stood, perhaps a little too quickly. My head spun, a dizzy spell overtaking my body, and I collapsed.

As the world darkened, I sensed the black creature from earlier. I caught its golden eyes peering in at me from one of the windows, watching me from the outside.

Everything faded away.


	3. Finn's Visit, Rey's Books, and the World Between Worlds (Rey's POV)

“You look like you hit your head pretty hard,” I heard Finn’s familiar voice say.

My eyes opened slowly. I gazed around my living area and noticed Finn hovering over the kitchen counter, preparing two cups of tea.

I lifted off the lounge chair where I lay, unaware of how I’d gotten here or when Finn had arrived. As I rose, a sharp pain ripped through my forehead. I sank back down into the seat.

BB whirled around the living area, yelling at me to take it easy.

“When did you get here?” I asked Finn, ignoring the lightheaded, dizzy feeling still encompassing my entire body.

“About an hour ago.” He walked over a cup of the tea and placed it in my hands. The mug warmed my insides, and I pressed the porcelain against my chest.

Finn’s forehead creased with concern. “What happened, Rey?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “I must’ve gotten a little carried away in my exercises, that’s all.”

“You look tired.”

“Everyone seems insistent on telling me I’m not okay.” I eyed BB who whined its own version of disapproval. “That’s what’s beginning to get a little tiresome.”

Seeing the hurt look in Finn’s expression, I let out a breath of air.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean that. I know you’re asking because you care.”

“Yeah, I care, and we’re all concerned, that’s all,” Finn admitted, cradling his own cup in his hands. He took a seat on a chair at the far end of the living area. “But if you say you’re alright, I’ll leave it at that.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, genuinely feeling guilty. After all, Finn had taken the time to fly here to see me, to check in on me, temporarily foregoing his business with the New Republic.

He raised a brow, eyes softening with a knowing look. I could feel him sensing my thoughts. Though Finn hadn’t ever directly told me, I knew what he’d meant to say the previous year as we’d believed we were sinking to our doom. When he’d said, ‘Rey, I never got to tell you…’ he’d meant he was Force sensitive.

“There’s always a spot for you on the council,” Finn said, confirming what I already knew to be true about his ability to read my feelings.

I nodded. “I know.”

“We could use a Jedi. Especially one like you.”

We passed a few minutes in silence, sipping on the tea he’d made for us. He tapped his foot against the floor every so often, and he looked up as if to say something. Yet he shared no words. Just as Finn had sensed my thoughts, I sensed his, too. I understood what he’d come here to say.

“You don’t need to be worried for me,” I said, “I understand. He’s dead.”

“You say that, but I feel like there’s still something you’re not telling anyone.” He frowned. “I just thought…”

“You just thought what?”

“I just thought you knew you could talk to me about how you’re feeling.”

“I do know that, Finn,” I said. “I know that without a shadow of a doubt.”

“Then why haven’t you ever opened up to me about how Kylo’s death is making you feel? It’s holding you back. You’re still holding onto him, and I don’t know why.”

Sipping on my tea, I mulled over what Finn had said. I’d trained to remain calm, to keep the composure of a Jedi, and I needed to refrain from speaking out emotionally. I placed the mug to the side and took a breath.

“You’re right,” I said, “Kylo Ren did die. But…”

“But…”

“Ben Solo still lives inside of me.”

Finn sank into his chair. I could see in his tangled expression he wanted to say something he dared not say.

I’d tried explaining the Force dyad once before to both Finn and Poe. It’d seemed to fall on unwilling ears, so I’d dropped the topic both times I’d brought it up. I’d never found a way to explain the connection, and neither Finn nor Poe had been on Exegol to understand what Ben and I had been through together. There was only one other person who could possibly understand the spiritual bond, and that person wasn’t here. Wouldn’t ever be here, as far as I understood.

“Sometimes I still feel him around me,” I admitted, voice soft.

Finn studied me sharply.

“I know this isn’t my place,” he said, “but when are you going to let go of the past, Rey? We need you. Palpatine’s death ended the First Order, sure, but it didn’t bring peace to the galaxy. There’s still so much work left to be done.”

“I know.”

“I thought you of all people would want to be part of this. Instead, you’re holed up on Tatooine, withering away.”

“I’m not withering away.”

Finn raised a brow. “Sure seems that way to me.”

“I promise you… I just need more time. I can’t explain what it is I’m going through, other than to say I feel like a piece of me has been destroyed, and I need to figure out how to be whole again.”

“Alright, Rey.” Finn’s expression turned to sadness. “But if you ever need a thing, don’t hesitate to reach out, okay? I would drop everything to help you.”

And that was exactly why I needed him to leave.

*****

A few days later, I waited outside as Finn’s ship took off and sailed into the sky. The weakness in my limbs hadn’t subsided, but I’d downplayed all of this and insisted that Finn should get back to the base, that he didn’t need to waste any more time here with me.

When his ship was nothing more than a speck in space, I raced back inside, quickly heading for my study where I kept the books I’d snatched off Ahch-To from Master Luke. After the visions with Ben the other day, I knew I might find the answers somewhere in those pages. I had so many questions, and the books seemed to be the only place I could go.

Flipping through the pages of one book in particular, I stopped when I caught a familiar image. The graphic contained a chain of circles titled Chain Worlds Theorem, and there was another image titled The Unsolved Thorpe Theorem. I’d studied these pages many times before, and something told me the answers to all my problems lie in these words.

I just didn’t know what any of it meant. I spent the next ten minutes reading through explanations and theorems I couldn’t comprehend for the life of me. Then I slammed the book to a close and sighed.

“Maybe Finn’s right. Maybe I really do need to let go.”

I paced in the room. My mind buzzed with a million little thoughts; so many external forces clouding my ability to connect. A tiredness grew within every limb of my body; something I’d never experienced before.

I needed to do something differently.

Perhaps I knew exactly what that might be.


	4. An Imbalance In the Force Dyad (Ben's POV)

“I _am_ a monster.”

I observed a version of myself grate out the words from where I stood in the middle of oblivion. A mirror projecting my past forced me to gaze upon my old life and atone for all my deeds.

I watched the boy, not a man, cloaked in black. The boy referring to himself as Kylo Ren, who had just begun to realize the inexplainable force tying him together with another. Past Rey studied me, studied Kylo Ren, in an attempt to discern the truth beyond the façade. Even then she could see right through me.

This had been the most nerve-wracking thing. A person inside my mind. Someone who could see through every single barrier I'd armoured myself with.

I remembered that clearly.

As I observed the scene unfolding in the scry reminding me of the past, my essence reverberated; floated in the midst of nowhere. I was nothing. In a place of nowhere. The construct of everything finite lost to me.

Darkness, emptiness, a blank space void of time, space, and life. An emptiness overwhelmed me. I was pulled in three different directions, soul calling out to Rey, reaching blindly, but remaining stuck in the unknown. I had seen her for a split second. The real Rey. We had touched, a spark ignited, then everything returned to nothing, save for the moving parts of the past tormenting my present.

_Is this to be my fate for the rest of eternity?_

_Yes_ , I reasoned, _it’s what I deserve._

I’d been repeating this to myself for however long I’d been trapped in this place. In this pitch-black state.

The only light came from the panel before me which reflected moving pictures of a time long gone. An infinite number of mirrors lined the walls, each of them playing a different memory of the past. The edges around the images shimmered with life. I had no option of moving away. Everywhere I turned, a different memory confronted me.

I had chosen the easiest visions to focus my attention on.

The memories where I could see _her_.

Each time we had connected via the Force, I caught Past Rey’s sad, lonely eyes in the reflected images. An orphan reaching out to nothing and waiting on people who would never return. The feelings of neglect and abandonment ran deep within her, even the last time I’d seen her on Exegol. Some pains never left us.

I knew from my own issues with my parents that certain cuts never healed.

In my periphery, the other memories haunted me. I watched the boy in the mask—my time as Kylo Ren—storm through the galaxy, slaughtering innocents in my quest for glory and domination. I watched as I stabbed a lightsaber through my own father. I watched and watched and watched and watched; the pain ran through, ripped me open, and exposed my most vulnerable elements to the universe.

I had been a monster. That had been my choice.

Now I needed to accept my fate.

I cast my eyes down.

“Hngh…” I heard my father’s voice groan from one of the mirrors. My head lifted, and I gazed in the direction of where I’d heard his voice.

"Dad?" I choked out, wondering if somehow my father had reached me. Instead, my eyes fell upon another mirror showing me a more distant memory.

In the image, a younger version of my father with dark hair and fewer wrinkles had just woken up, holding a baby—holding me—in his arms. A holograph appeared in front of him revealing a woman with short hair, blue eyes, and a long, dangling necklace; this seemed to be the reasoning behind his awakening. As my father went through the exchange, he peered down at me more so out of obligation than with any sort of love.

I couldn’t have been very old. Maybe a few months. I didn't recall this memory, but it made sense.

I wondered if this is where it had all started—with a father who couldn’t be very reliable, and an entire family of legends who barely had any time to raise a child.

Perhaps Rey had been the only orphan between the two of us.

But I’d always identified with lost children in my own way. I was a lost child, too, and this had marked me, made me different. Made me a misfit.

A few stray tears trailed down my form, this energetic body now making up my soul.

I’d been born into a life of torment, and my ending days would end in torment, too.

I couldn’t run from the pain consuming me. I’d never be free of the misery.

 _Rey_ , my soul involuntarily called out to her, _Rey._

I heard and felt nothing in response.


End file.
